38 L'ATTESA - EN
38. L’attesa 1976, oil on canvas, 50 x 40 cm
The vertical work depicts three female figures with poor winter clothes standing on the beach, one central in the foreground and two lateral ones slightly back and partially covered by the central figure. They turn their backs to the sea. The central figure wears a light-colored cape over her black coat, her clasped hands holding a whitish bag. On the left a woman with a blue dress, she too looks at the viewer while the woman on the right is dressed in brown and slightly turned three-quarters to the left. They have serious expressions and short, dark hair. Behind them at the height of their necks, the white stripe of the rough sea crosses the painting horizontally. The blue sky concludes the composition. They are three solid and melancholic figures immersed in a suspended atmosphere. The rough sea behind them, in contrast with the blue sky, underlines the potential threat and the concern for their husbands at sea. The winter clothes suggest a harsh climate and a long wait. The serious expressions on the women’s faces reflect the anxiety and hope typical of those who await the return of their loved ones from the sea.
Insights
Catarsini has always remained faithful to a line of work capable of exalting the dignity of the human being, in particular of the men and women of his city, especially the maritime one that, loved with enthusiasm and generosity, will be the generating nucleus of his painting until the end of his career.
Many of his works are dedicated to the narration of this world through subjects that do not represent the summer and worldly Viareggio, but rather the subtle melancholy that this city is able to convey in a unique way.
The artist felt part of that universe made up of sailors, shipwrights and women awaiting the return of the fishermen to port. The theme, typically Viaresque, is resolved by him in a less desperate and madly tragic way than his master, although full of a strong expressive tension. The subject, in fact, is reinterpreted on the long wave of that existential realism that developed in Italy starting from the 1950s, while retaining the characteristics of a “Tuscan realism of expressionist tangency” whose roots are to be found in Viani, Rosai and even before in Fattori, as Nicola Micieli claims.
The paintings dedicated to this subject are numerous and characterized by a rough and essential language, made of energetic brush strokes and chromatic vibrations, on registers that are not at all precious, without luministic complacency. His harsh naturalism is characterized by a roughness that is an integral part of the character of the people of Viareggio and of an important aspect of Tuscan painting.
In Viareggio, in July 1977, the Galleria Il Magazzino del Sale, sets up the First Rassegna Arte Figurativa, as a tribute to Lorenzo Viani and Moses Levy, which will also see the presence of Catarsini. The same year the release of his new novel, Fra l’incudine e il martello, was also announced; never published, it is set in the Viareggio of the 1920s, that of his youth, in which one can breathe an atmosphere steeped in anarchist and socialist ideals, populated by characters who are very reminiscent of Viani’s world. The novel will be released in 2026, published by La nave di Teseo.